This content was published: May 23, 2020. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.

Manage Dates tool in D2L Brightspace

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The Manage Dates tool can help you to adjust most of the dates in your course in one place.

Start, End, and Due dates for Calendar items, Checklists, Content modules and topics, Discussions, Grades, Announcements, Quizzes, and Surveys presented here and can be edited individually or can be bulk edited. The Locking dates for Discussions can be adjusted here as well.

The Manage Dates tool also shows you if the activity is visible to students and if it is displayed in the calendar.

The Manage Date tool provides a method for quickly reviewing dates set in a course; the tool offers a sortable table view, which can be filtered by tool type.

Manage Dates Tool Video tutorial:

Video by Brightspace Tutorials

Finding Manage Dates Tool in D2L course:

  1. Select?Course Admin in the course Nav Bar.
  2. Select?Manage Dates, located under Site Resources” section.
    Find Manage Dates tool under Course Admin link on the NavBar

Using Filter by Tool display options and sorting course Items:

You can narrow down your choices by using the Filter by Tool option. For example, if you have dates only associated with Quizzes and Assignments, select only them under Specific Tools selection on top of the page. Click the Apply Filter button.Selecting Specific Tools Filter
You can group the events on the top of the page by clicking on the Start Date or End Date columns names.Sorting the with Start Date and End Date columns

Bulk Offsetting Dates in a Course:

  1. Select all the items (Content items, Discussions, Assignments, Quizzes, etc.) that have the dates associated with them.Select items that have dates associated with them
  2. Click?Bulk Offset Dates button and Bulk Offset Dates?window will pop up.
    Selecting Bulk Offset Dates
  3. Select the dates type that you need to offset, usually you want to select all the options available: Due Date, Start Date, End Date, and Other activity dates.
    Also, select Calculate range between two dates option. We find this option most useful.Bulk Offset Dates Pop Up Window
  4. Once you select?Calculate range between two dates button the pop-up window will give calendar options to enter the desired two dates.? These two dates have to be the dates of the same reoccurring once a term event. You can use the beginning of the term for your reference. On this step, we want to be absolutely sure that we select the correct date.
    Selecting two dates to calculate the range for the offset
    You can open another tab in your browser and go to Calendars on the pcc.edu page and choose Academic Calendar. On this page Beginning of term is clearly marked and we can go ahead and use these dates.
    Academic Calendar
  5. Let’s get back to the D2L tab and select the start day of the previous term in the From select box. Select a start day of the new term in the To box.
    Once you enter the dates, the window will display the exact number of dates to complete the offset.
    Selecting 2 dates
  6. Click on Save and let D2L process your request. It may take some time for D2L to get this job done. You can refresh your browser’s window and see the results.

You have to be very careful, when you are changing all the dates at once, because, if you do make a mistake by offsetting the dates for the wrong amount of days, it might create even more work fixing it, rather than change each date for the single items and that is another option to edit your dates in Manage Dates tool.

Editing Dates for a Single Item

  1. Select?Course Admin in the course Nav Bar.
  2. Select?Manage Dates, located under Site Resources” section.
  3. Locate the item to change the date in the Manage Dates tool’s table and select the dropdown arrow next to the item name.
  4. Select?Edit Dates and the Edit Dates window will open.
  5. Enter new dates and select?Save.
  6. Select the checkbox for this item in the?Calendar column to display the item end date in the Calendar.?access-editing Start and End Dates for a Single Item

Content Modules vs Items – dates managing suggestion

When you are setting dates for Content, try just setting dates on the module itself, not on every content item in the module. This helps simplify management of the dates, and based on the volume of calls we receive about it, setting dates on individual content items tends to create access issues for students later. It also makes managing dates easier in the future if you’re only changing the dates at the module level instead of individual files.

In Manage Dates, you can filter by Tool and select Content, then sort the results by Type to see just the modules. Then you can manage the dates for the modules rather easily.

access- Selecting Content Modules ine the Manage Dates tool

Calendar options

If you make the dates available in the Calendar, students will be able to see the dates on the Calendar widget located on the Homepage of the course an in the Pulse mobile app or in their own calendar if they sync with their Google Calendar.